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Finnish e-government solution wins European Identity Award

A Finnish e-government solution has won the European Identity Award. Powered by Finnish Ubisecure, a pioneering developer of standardized identity and access management software, KATSO/Tunnistus.fi enables secure and trusted federation of Finnish e-government services by citizens and organizations. The award was presented at the European Identity Conference in Munich, Germany (http://www.id-conf.com/).

lmp.ucla.edu

The KATSO/Tunnistus.fi service provides authentication and authorization service for Finnish citizens and organizations using e-government services, eg. Finnish Tax Administration, Social Insurance, City of Helsinki and Finnish Customs. Launched in 2004 (Tunnistus.fi) and 2006 (KATSO), the KATSO/Tunnistus.fi Consortium is led by the Finnish Tax Administration, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy; and The Social Insurance Institution of Finland. The current number of e-services served by KATSO/Tunnistus.fi is 28.

KATSO/Tunnistus.fi service has expanded significantly. With a 72% penetration of all Finnish companies, in the year 2010 there was a grand total of 13,322,703 Tunnistus.fi events (59.6% growth year-over-year).

Katso-authentication was used 4,082,733 times (132.5% growth year-over-year). The overall growth estimate for the KATSO/Tunnistus.fi service for 2011 is 50%.

“2010 has been a breakthrough for the KATSO/Tunnistus.fi service. The number of government authorities providing services and the number of citizens using them have exploded,” says Ubisecure CEO Juha Remes. “Trusted areas for establishing broader e-service entities such as this are the way of the future. The secure transfer of authenticated digital identities from one service to another serves as a transparent gateway through which the user may navigate, without having to register or login again.” Ubisecure software solutions enable new online business concepts and speed the growth of existing web-based operations by combining separate sites and services into larger trusted areas. Federated networks of trust between organizations enable smoother extranet use and efficient identity management. A federated digital identity provides single-sign-on access to all necessary third-party services and applications, simply by logging onto the corporate network. Easier access makes cooperation faster and more productive.